Justice Department memos prove US did not torture

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Staff

Posted By: Staff

Published: Saturday, April 18, 2009, 15:50 [IST]

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Washington, Apr.18 (ANI): A high-profile attorney has claimed that the declassified Department of Justice memos detailing interrogation techniques prove the U.S. did not torture, even as the ACLU and some lawmakers claim the memos are proof positive the Bush administration did.

Constitutional lawyer David Rivkin said: "This data is analyzed in great detail to establish that the use of these techniques does not inflict either physical or psychological damage."

"The conclusions (the) memos reach -- that the specific interrogation techniques used by the CIA did not constitute torture -- are eminently reasonable," he added.

Fox News ,however, quoted Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, as saying that four memos, without a shadow of a doubt, authorized torture and gave explicit instruction on how to carry it out, all the while carefully attempting to maintain a legal fig leaf."

The memos, written between 2002 and 2005, concluded that the interrogation techniques listed in them did not violate anti-torture laws

One May 2005 memo detailed 12 techniques and concluded that none of them constituted torture, while describing how they would result in minimal damage to a detainee.

On dietary manipulation, through which suspects are fed liquid diets, the memo said all detainees would be weighed weekly -- and the restricted diet would be ceased if a detainee loses more than 10 percent of his body weight. On "walling," through which a suspect is slammed into a "flexible, false wall," the memo said the technique is not intended to "inflict any injury or cause severe pain."

Other methods included slapping and placing a prisoner in "stress positions".

Rivkin argues that the documents were "well-written" and featured "careful and nuanced legal analysis." (ANI)